‘Eugene tells me you’re here all by yourself, so if you need anything, be sure to shout on me. I’m Mrs Mair,’ the woman was saying as she gave the booth table a wipe over. She leaned a little closer, her rosy-cheeked smile forcing her eyes into crescents. ‘The Fergusson laddies do their best, but, you know… I’m always around if needed.’
‘Umm, thanks, Mrs Mair,’ Beatrice smiled back, awkwardly, and the woman shuffled away again, past the bar and through the door marked ‘kitchen’.
Gene had told Mrs Mair she was travelling alone, had he? So she was already the subject of gossip at the inn? Great! The sooner she could make her departure tomorrow, the better. At least there were no wagging tongues and prying eyes when she was hiding under her duvet back in Warwickshire.
She threw another furtive glance towards Atholl and the pretty woman. Her hair was a brighter shade of red than his and hung in looser waves, and when Atholl talked with her at the bar, where she perched on a stool and spread open notebooks and a laptop, he leaned his chin on his hand and the room sang with their chatter.
Beatrice reached a hand to her own dull brown hair and ran her fingers through the ends. She had never been strikingly pretty, she found herself thinking. Not like that red-headed, pearly-skinned woman making Atholl smile.
Beatrice’s maternal grandmother had once, long ago and without intending to hurt her, described her as ‘pleasant-looking’ and that had stuck in her head. Pleasant, plain, nothing too special. She’d probably looked her best around the time she met Richard. She was only twenty-eight then, and full of confidence and gusto from being happy and successful in her busy, exciting arts networking job. Her hair had been longer then too and she’d been a dress size smaller and she hadn’t ever bothered with make-up other than a bit of mascara.
Richard hadseriouslyfancied her back then when he was the proprietor of a cool, vintage cinema-mobile, all chrome, curves and black and white movies. There were fourteen leather seats inside Glenda – that’s what the van was called – as well as a small screen and a popcorn machine. Glenda and Rich had done a roaring trade at festivals across the country.
As bold as brass, he’d told Beatrice he thought she was gorgeous the very first time they met at the Three Counties agricultural show where Glenda was showingAn American In Parisback to back all weekend. Beatrice was manning the council arts stall and doing a bit of public relations, meet-the-locals stuff. After they got together he’d sold the company to a friend and moved into selling film rights, maybe not quite so exciting and itinerant, but certainly more dependable.
He’d sent her a huge bunch of roses at her office and asked her out three times before she said yes. She couldn’t remember how she’d had the confidence to say no, especially when she’d thought Rich was fanciable and nice, but you could play games like that when you were young and there was all the time in the world.
Now, sitting under the bar room lights, she felt as though all the colour had somehow washed out of her and she knew she looked tired and every one of her thirty-nine years, eleven months – if not older.
She hadn’t a clue she was being assessed admiringly by the group of farm workers who had recently arrived and were settled around two tables just across the room from her. They were smiling behind their pint glasses and nudging the youngest, handsomest one amongst them, telling him to get across the room and ask her for her name. But two of the crafting womenhadnoticed them and, hoping to spare her a night of being chatted up by every lad in Port Willow, they’d made a beeline for Beatrice all alone at her booth.
‘You can stop pretending to read now. Are you another one of us?’ said a beautiful black woman wearing her hair in a halo of natural waves.
‘One of us?’ Beatrice echoed, a little dazed and realising the women might have caught her staring across the room at the handsome red-headed barman as he talked to the beautiful woman.
‘A crafter?’ said the other, a glamorous platinum-blonde woman, all Fake Bake tan over white skin and with phenomenal lashes.
Both women, Beatrice realised, had rich and rounded Newcastle accents.
‘Oh, yes I suppose I am. Are you willow-weaving?’
‘No, we’re painting,’ replied the blonde, who Beatrice guessed was the eldest of the two, though both looked as though they were in their thirties. ‘Thought it would make a change from us painting faces and tinting hair all the time,’ she added.
‘You’re beauticians?’
The blonde got in first with a reply. ‘Aye, this is our staff outing and our summer holiday combined. We’re partners in our spa in Gateshead, Bobby Dazzlers?’ She said this as though Beatrice might have heard of it. ‘As if we don’t get enough of each other at work.’
The other woman reached out a hand graced with silver rings and long, fiercely pointed, coral-pink fingernails. ‘I’m Jillian, by the way; and she’s Cheryl.’
‘Beatrice. Good to meet you. I’m not really a crafter though. I’m signed up for willow-weaving lessons but, between you and me, I’m not exactly keen. In fact, I’m thinking about heading home again tomorrow.’
‘And do what? Regret you’ve missed your holiday?’ said Jillian, reaching for the menu, and Beatrice realised with some relief – followed by a hot wave of anxiety – that she wouldn’t be dining alone after all.
If she was going to be making small talk with these women over dinner she’d have to be on her best behaviour and try to act normally. And justhowdid she do that, again?
Her new dinner companions were examining her, she knew, trying to work out why on earth she was here. She had no intention of telling them. The only good thing about this mad dash to the Highlands was the anonymity it offered. Nobody knew her and that made things so much easier. Beatrice changed the subject.
‘Did you get in today too? Done any sightseeing yet?’
‘This morning,’ Cheryl replied, and Beatrice wondered if she saw disappointment cross her face at her evasiveness. ‘We’ve been walking all day. A bit too long a walk!’ Cheryl reached under the table to rub her foot.
‘And we got soaked,’ Jillian added. ‘But the scenery around here is stunning. Breath-taking, you might say.’
That was when Beatrice realised Jillian was looking over at Atholl behind the bar and smirking while Cheryl nudged her in the ribs to shut her up. So theyhadseen her staring at Atholl.
The beauticians’ laughter drew Atholl’s eyes to their booth. The look of confusion and ire on his stern face as he broke off from his conversation with the pretty woman made Beatrice stifle a laugh too and the women huddled their heads closer together.
‘Hold on a minute!’ An idea suddenly struck Beatrice, lighting a fire behind her eyes. ‘IknewI recognised you both.’
